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Anyway, J. Patrick Hornbeck, an assistant professor of theology at Fordham University, uses Juicy Campus in an essay as an example of how he believes the Internet has created a nation of communication dimwits. Very advanced dimwits, but dimwits nonetheless.

Here’s an excerpt from his essay:

“We have lost our ability to communicate humanly, and with it the same portion of our ability to communicate humanely.

The Internet and the information economy have brought us a slew of benefits, not least the BlackBerry (on which I wrote the first draft of this article). But they have also fostered the polarization of views and flattening of nuance that occur when conversations move from the three dimensions of face-to-face dialogue to the two of computer screens and typefaces.

Technology enables two roommates, both at home, to text each other rather than talk. It has provided new opportunities for swindlers, like the Facebook hacker who convinced a student’s friends that he was in trouble in London and needed money immediately.

It allowed cruel members of a chat room to encourage a young man in Florida to commit suicide, live online, after he asked them whether or not he should. And, of course, it allowed for my student’s ordeal with JuicyCampus.

Whether we work at public, private, secular, or religious institutions, the imperative is clear for us as educators to find ways to rekindle authentic human communication; to challenge the notion that words written online mean the same, and behave the same way, as those spoken aloud.

We must help students develop the capacity to empathize with one another but also to challenge one another — appropriately, respectfully, and in person, not online and anonymously.

We must help them learn to participate in the complex and sometimes emotionally fraught network of human connections that comes with relationships and community.”